Columbus Mennonite Church
Mission Statement
In our worship and prayer:
• We will follow the way of Jesus Christ by praying, reading the Bible and listening to each other and to God.
• We will worship God with both our hearts and our heads, using the arts to express the inexpressible.
• We will ask the Holy Spirit to empower us to discern God’s call and carry it out.
• We will invoke the God of reconciliation in our prayers, songs and meditations.
• We will confess our sins before God in submission, rejoicing in God’s forgiveness and acceptance.
• We pray for the courage to live as God would have us live, even when this puts us in conflict with our society.
As stewards of God’s resources:
• We will offer our time, talents and money to God’s discretion.
• We will live simply, believing in God’s abundance when others see only scarcity and the need to hoard.
• We will give as God has given to us.
• We will learn how to manage our planet’s resources wisely in order to care for them in a way pleasing to God.
• We will joyfully rearrange our time and finances to bring about justice in the world.
As a community growing toward grace, joy and peace:
• We will be honest with each other about our possessions, our time and our relationships.
• We will seek and give discipline regularly, confronting each other in love.
• We will overcome the temptation to seek revenge, offering forgiveness and grace just as we have received them from God through Jesus Christ.
• We will welcome strangers and outcasts into our community, giving aid and comfort.
• We will respect every voice in our community, even the unpopular and dissenting ones.
As a people empowered to call leaders:
• We will call those who lead by serving, as Christ did.
• We will encourage people to be a priesthood of believers, as our Anabaptist ancestors taught.
• We will train women and men for leadership roles.
• We will give our leaders time to nurture their spiritual lives.
As channels of God’s healing and hope to those outside our community:
• We will tell the Gospel message wherever we go, relating our own experiences of Christ as well as the biblical stories.
• We will walk with people in need, not just provide ministry to them.
• We will stand for peace and reconciliation, justice and right practices wherever we see wrong.
• We will stand with the oppressed and the outcast.
• We will stand against the principalities and powers of the world.
• We will follow Jesus’ example of nonviolent resistance in confronting evil.